Memoirs

27Feb

The Ikorodu Mafia

The long, early commutes to my Peninsula office were a defining feature of my early career. But those journeys were far from solitary. They were a tapestry of interactions with fellow commuters, men and women whose lives intertwined with mine. It was a time when our Nigeria felt like a single community, bound not by tribe, but by a shared pursuit of knowledge, mutual support, and a celebration of our common humanity
7 mins read
09Jul

From Accounts to Siberia: My Brush with Bureaucratic Corruption

There is corruption in high places and we are all afraid to resist it because doing so often comes at a cost. Youthfulness and idealism were helpful in my saying No. Someone has put it simply - we all want to be a Diamond but do not want to be cut!
10 mins read
08Jan

Not Pretty but good enough II

There was no walking down the street to play with some neighbourhood friends and definitely no invitation for friends to come over and play soccer as I did at Oke-Labo. Our movements were fairly predictable - to school and back, to church or to some families for the occasional birthdays and celebrations for Christmas etc. We were truly ‘ajebota’ kids, protected by solid walls and iron gates.
5 mins read
24Oct

Lekki, in the beginning

I knew I was meant to work in the Oil&Gas industry but how I would do this was totally oblivious to me. At the University, I had taken up "Sheikh" as my nickname, a title befitting a Gulf Arab Elder that dispenses oil wealth to his people. At HIS appointed time, which definitely wasn't mine as I had given up to face a career in Banking, my feet were re-ordered. This post gives a sneek peek on how I got into the career.
5 mins read
08Jun

A Thousand and One Incisions

I would get woken up and, looking at the staircase, would see my father with his left hand resting on the rail, his right hand holding his chin with his eyes looking at me from the distance. His look was intense as if saying “come child”. A few times I had woken up those sleeping next to me, pointing at the staircase and shouting “Daddy is here”, but like those with Paul on the road to Damascus, they saw nothing and cautioned me to stop disrupting their sleep.
5 mins read
08May

Not Pretty but good enough

At break time, a pupil went around ringing the brass bell, something that we really looked forward to with excitement. Our excitement was not for the bell but what comes after it, the arrival of the ‘Iya Olounje’. Smartly dressed in deep blue gowns, they come into the different classrooms and set down their food trays right next to the blackboard. As she opens the food, the scintillating aroma fills the classroom and not a few of us would start salivating. Our food containers which we had deposited at the start of the day would be taken by the woman and filled with whatever food was for the day
7 mins read